On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 4:07 PM, thomas.wawersig
<thomas.wawersig@...> wrote:
> Hi Robyn,
>
> thanks for the information.
>
> Yes, I already checked priority in BIOS and XOSL setup (when I still
> had it).
> Actually I removed XOSL and just wanted to re-install, but it got
> stuck at "reading disk structure" (with this said external drive still
> plugged in...).
>
> Since I had it all up and running with an external disk before, it is
> probably not related to disk size, but number of primary partitions.
> The only difference (except for disk size of course) is another
> logical partition on the new drive. But what I forgot ist, that
> creating a logical partition requires a primary extended partition
> first. So all together XOSL now sees 5 primaries instead of 4. I think
> I remember that there is an issue with having more than 4 primary
> partitions (though I am not sure wehther I read this relating to
> XOSL). In your setup, are all partitions hosting an OS set up as
> primary partitions?
>

The limit of four primary (including extended) partitions is per disk.
It is not a limitation of XOSL, it is in the standard ms-dos
disklabel, that is, there is no place for more than four partitions in
a normal partition table.

I have succefully used XOSL with three disks having each 4 primary partitions.

I do not have any experience with external disks but I think support
for them would need to be in the BIOS. XOSL does not include any
recent drivers so it is not aware of USB, SATA, 1394, SD or any of
that recent stuff. For them to work correctly with XOSL (and the other
boot loaders), the BIOS needs to allow access to these new devices in
the old IBM PC-compatible way.

Antoine